The present invention relates to a heating and/or air-conditioning apparatus for automotive vehicles.
Heating and air-conditioning installations for automotive vehicles comprising a blower, heat exchanger and flaps to influence the flow of air, are already known. It is further known from German Patent No. 27 24 69 to arrange electronic components, which are capable of generating considerable amounts of heat, in planar contact with appropriate cooling bodies.
Cooling surfaces or suitable cooling bodies should be positioned to assure sufficient heat removal. Thus, for example, it has already been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,786,173 to arrange a power resistor which generates significant amounts of heat, outside the passenger compartment, on the outside of the dashboard. Such a solution is, however, impractical because additional electrical conduits and connections are required, and the apparatus cannot be mounted as a complete unit but must be subsequently assembled in the vehicle.
It has further been attempted to arrange electronic components generating significant amounts of heat in the blower housing, so that a constant flow of air would be available to remove the heat from the cooling elements. It has been discovered, however, that such a measure results in an appreciable interference with the flow of air and the generation of noise.